Thursday, August 1, 2013

Altitude Running Training 2013

Date: 26 - 28 July 2013

Venue: Cameron Highlands, Pahang, Malaysia




Inaugural event put up by Ben of Running Guild. It was a 3-day event with 5 sessions with the first one starting on Friday evening. Yup, nothing like getting things moving along 2 seconds after you put down your bags and check in. Kidding! It really depends on what time you get there – we had about 2 hours to have lunch, unpack and chill out.



Session 1: Friday evening

- Warm up with running 3 loops around the car park! In full view of the other guests and hotel staff. And the car park is NOT flat terrain – for aesthetic and environmental purposes (this is my assumption!), the terrain followed the natural curvatures of the hills and there were 2 steep ones in the 200m loop.



- Drills, strides for the next 1.5 hours of which I look like a clown and klutz on the skipping rope, double tap hop skip.



- The elation of "surviving" the first session


- All recorded by our 3 personal photographers for the event. You know, just in case one or two of them missed you out while you’re attempting to look “elegant” doing the forefoot strikes, knee highs etc.




Session 2: Saturday morning

- 6 am wake up call with hill intervals. Nice cool morning with great company and the views after we finished were just as awesome.





- Showered and refueled before nap time! LOL! That was unintentional! The grand plan was to chill out and check emails, surf the Net but guess there was a “higher calling”.



Session 3: Saturday mid morning

- Quick cup of tea before our 1.5 hour session.



- Learnt something new: it’s BIG TROUBLE when Ben brings along the mega roller luggage bag.



- Warmed up with you know, you know…that 3 loops followed by circuit training, drills, strides, flexibility, coordination workout with the rock melons!





- Showered and refueled before ANOTHER nap.



- Beginning to feel like a pro athlete!



Session 4: Saturday evening

- Rained out but we weren’t that “lucky” to have the session cancelled or postponed.



- Indoor workout – body weight strength training with some modifications of the earlier sessions thrown in.







- Early onset of shin splints and calf soreness; it was gonna be a long and tough Sunday morning for sure!



Session 5: Sunday morning
- Another 6am 5:45am wake up call for a “Fun Run”. Chillier than the previous day coz of the overnight rain. Don’t forget the howling wind! We were doomed.



- Lots of fun for sure. For Ben.



- Un-runable last km before the u-turn; it was an out-and-back route. Dark, unlighted route. Uneven surfaces. Part gravel, part asphalt. Steepest gradient. Elevation gain. Stray dogs for company.





- Shin splints, sore calves, shoulders.



- Consolation: Awesome views and this medal at the finishing point.





Graduation!


Photo stolen from credits to ART/Ben, Dave Poh, Joe, Angie Teo, Diana, Royston, Yi Xiang, Joshua, Joey

2 comments:

The Boring Runner said...

WOW, that looks like a really fun time! I've never been to a running camp like that, but have always wanted to try!

Jen Feeny said...

This looks like such a fun time and so much great info to add to the artillery! Also, you look absolutely adorable in all the pics; no clown or klutz to be seen.